Lightline devices, often referred to as lightlines, line converters, linear arrays, light flanges or light arrays are fiber optic devices that reorient light from an input into a predetermined pattern such as a line. Lightline devices are commonly used for lighting in machine vision, web inspection, document scanning, microscopy and robotics. In practice, the lightline devices may have a length of less than an inch to more than a hundred inches. In those lightline devices having an elongate rectilinear output such as a line, the output may have a line thickness ranging from a few thousandths of an inch to tenths of an inch.
The lightline device may be retained in a housing having a length on the order of a few inches to a few feet. To produce lightline devices of greater length, structural and manufacturing considerations often require that these individual lightline housings be disposed within a common housing in an abutting or adjacent relationship to produce the longer lightline devices.
In contrast to the output of the lightline devices, the inputs are generally bundled, wherein a multitude of optical fibers are combined into a single input bundle. Individual fibers thus extend from an input geometry for exposure to a light source to terminate at a terminal end, the terminal end having a geometry dictated by the particular application.
However, the need exists for a lightline device, and preferably a device of modular construction, which accommodates multiple inputs, wherein the individual fiber location in the lightline output is randomized at the output or terminal end area so that variations in individual inputs or light sources are substantially uniformly distributed throughout the entire area of the lightline output. A need also exists for such randomized output in cooperation with a randomized input. That is, the need exists for a lightline device having multiple inputs, wherein fibers in a given input are randomly distributed at the output array. A further need exists for a method of constructing a lightline device with such randomized output and input, which is independent of lightline housing length. That is, a randomized lightline may be of any desired length. The need also exists for such lightlines to be disposed in a modular housing that facilitates modular construction of larger lightline devices having a continuous output array formed by a plurality of modular housings.